The Premier League is boring - this is where the real action is! (The Football League Show)

Member Name: stuff10

Product:	The Football League Show
Date:	21/08/09 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sheffield United highlights!

Disadvantages: W*******y and L**ds highlights!

As you may or may not know, the BBC has won the rights to broadcast live games and highlights from the Football league for the next 3 seasons.

The Football League consists of the 3 divisions below the Premier League - The Championship, League 1 and League 2. Fans of clubs in these leagues will tell you that they're infinitely more competitive and unpredictable than the boring Premier League. With the Premier league you can predict the results with a good deal of confidence, but you can't generally do this with the Football League - look at Peterborough and Exeter who've achieved 2 successive promotions, and look at how big clubs like L**ds, Southampton, Norwich and Charlton are languishing in League 1... much more entertaining than the Premier League in my opinion.

Anyway, onto The Football League Show (TFLS)...

TFLS is a highlights package from the BBC that's broadcast on a Saturday night after Match of the Day. To me, this is the programme's first problem - it's on too late! Not wanting to sound like a big girl's blouse, but at 11.30pm on a Saturday I'm heading for bed, not wanting to sit up and watch another hour+ of football highlight! I suppose that some people will see it as the perfect time for post-pub viewing, but I tend to record it on Sky+ and watch it the following day.

TFLS is hosted by the likable Manish Bhasin who is joined by "expert" Steve Claridge. I say "expert" as I think that Claridge talks crap most of the time and doesn't add anything to the show. In fact, I've found myself fast-forwarding most of the analysis and just watching the goals. I find that an hour+ of highlights is just too much - I wanna see the goals from all 3 division without having to listen to what Claridge has to say.

It may only be 2 weeks old but I'm not overly impressed by TFLS for the following reasons:

- The title credits are enough to send you to sleep. It's just boring and nowhere near as good and lively as U2's "Beautiful Day" that used to signal the start of ITV's The Championship highlights.

- Last week Crystal Palace were denied a legitimate goal at Bristol City when the ref and linesmen ruled that the ball hadn't gone in, when it quite clearly had. TFLS got Palace manager Neil Warnock live on the phone and interviewed him in a very condescending manner "have you calmed down yet Neil?". No of course he hasn't you bloody idiot!!

- There was a full programme of fixtures in midweek, but did we get a midweek Football League Show? Not that I saw! Do midweek games not matter to the BBC?

It isn't all bad though! On the plus side:

- It does show all the goals from all the leagues.

- The BBC Sport website has the highlight of all the games (including midweek ones), so it is easy to catch-up with any games you've missed.

- You get to laugh at L**ds being in League 1! :))

Overall, its an okay programme but I just wish they'd talk a bit less and show more of the action. I'm not bothered about Claridge's opinions, I just wanna watch the goals!

Summary: All the goals, but it is dragged out a bit!